


From the Desk of Gertrude Robinson

by Zai42



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: A Leitner Made Them Do It, Blood, F/F, Face-Sitting, Fingerfucking, Frenemies, Handcuffs, Knifeplay, Multiple Orgasms, Object Insertion, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2019-12-30 04:45:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18308447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zai42/pseuds/Zai42
Summary: Mary has a tendency to bring Gertrude gifts.





	From the Desk of Gertrude Robinson

**Author's Note:**

  * For [track_04](https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/gifts).



Gertrude looked from the book to Mary and back again, the expression on her face inscrutable; somewhere in the neighborhood of distrustful, intrigued, annoyed. The usual, then, in Mary's experience.

  
Finally, the Archivist looked up, her grey eyes steely. "What are you getting out of this?" she asked flatly.

  
"Me?" Mary repeated, all batting eyelashes and syrupy innocence. She laid a hand over her heart. "Why, Gertrude, perhaps I just wanted to help the cause."

  
"Mary," Gertrude said, flatly. "Why have you given me this book?"

  
Mary shivered pleasantly and let her words flow out of her, sap from a tapped tree. "I don't know what it does, dear," she said, sighing and resting her head in one hand. "I was hoping you'd be able to help me, one way or the other."

  
"'The other' being I'd read it and you could see what happens, hm?" Gertrude replied, turning the book over. There were no words anywhere on the cover or along the binding. Gertrude didn't have to open it to know it was stamped with Jurgen Leitner's name, though she did now anyway, cautiously, keeping her eyes averted and feeling out the bookplate with her fingertips.

  
"No print," Mary announced. Gertrude glanced over to her, where she had leaned over the arm of her chair to eye the book upside-down. "This is really rather disappointing, so far. Don't you have assistants?"

  
"They're...indisposed," Gertrude said. "How did you get your hands on this, again?"

  
Mary smiled; Gertrude could have counted her teeth. "My Gerard is very resourceful," she said, and didn't elaborate.

  
For long moments they sat, each eyeing the book but keeping the other in their periphery. "I will look into it," Gertrude finally said, shutting it. "I'll let you know when I've figured something out," she added, though her lip curled as she said it, as if she found the prospect distasteful.

  
"Lovely! Thank you, Archivist," Mary said. Gertrude's lip curled further at the title. Mary stood. "Shall I check in on your progress later in the week?"

  
"If you must."

  
"Excellent. I'll be in touch, Gertrude." And she was gone, her cup of tea untouched where Gertrude had left it for her.

* * *

 

Gertrude was used to spending long hours in the Archives by herself. It was no more lonely than her own flat, and, by some metrics, it was safer. (She was never just safe, anymore, but had made her peace with measuring her safety in comparative terms.)  
The problem with spending so long alone in the Archives was it tended to lower one's defenses. It was something in the atmosphere; perhaps it opened one's mind to things that ought to have been kept out. Whatever the case, Gertrude didn't quite realize she had opened Mary's book until she was flipping through the pages, tracing the illustrations without absorbing them.

  
Fear bloomed in her brain like the slow spread of ink through water, and Gertrude cursed mildly, her hand freezing on the page. Still no words printed on the thick pages; no text accompanying the lurid illustrations beneath her fingertips. At first, Gertrude thought the book must belong to the Flesh, with the way the bodies drawn on the page seemed to writhe, the faces drawn in pain or terror or ecstasy; then she turned the page to see an illustration of something zombified, its back arching off its altar, and thought perhaps it was Corruption, or even the End. It was only three pages later that she finally noticed the eye motif, sketched inconspicuously somewhere on each page--she flipped back to double check, and yes, there it was, watching the zombie and the mass of limbs. She cursed again, less mildly, and put the book back on her desk. Her hands trembled as she dialed Mary's number. She had to hope it was her nerves.

  
"Gertrude, dear," said Mary, voice honeyed and dangerous. "It's the middle of the night." She didn't sound as if she'd been sleeping.

  
"It's one of ours," Gertrude said, clipped. "Your book."

  
"Really?" Mary drawled. "Beholding? How curious. What does it do?"

  
"I don't--" Gertrude swallowed, wet her suddenly dry lips. "I'm not sure," she amended. She opened her mouth, closed it again. Stared, considering, at the book on her desk.

  
"Shall I come for a visit, Gertrude?" Mary asked, after a slightly-too-long silence.

  
"It's the middle of the night," Gertrude said. Then: "Yes, I think you should."

* * *

Mary arrived in the Archives to find Gertrude sitting hunched over her desk, scribbling furiously on an empty manila folder, one hand fisted in her lap. Mary leaned over and read her scribbles upside-down, one eyebrow arching sharply. Both sides of the folder were covered in writing, Gertrude's usually-impeccable penmanship warped into a loping scrawl, letters half-formed, words trailing off without being completely finished. What little Mary could read was utter filth.

  
"How much of the book did you read?" Mary asked. Gertrude's hand twitched at the sound of her voice, and she tossed her pen into a corner with a snarl. When she looked up, her eyes were feral.

  
"Enough," she snapped. "Not all of it, I--I knew enough not to do that--it's--" She paused, her chest heaving as if she had run a mile. "I can-- _feel_ it," she managed eventually, her voice tight and breathless. "Every--every picture, every fantasy, I can--they're-- _inside_ me."

  
Mary hummed, walking around the desk to settle herself in Gertrude's lap, running a fingernail along her jaw. Gertrude writhed beneath her, panting hard enough Mary wondered if she would hyperventilate. "Tell me about them."

  
Gertrude nodded towards the folder. "It won't help. I wrote them down, it didn't--"

  
Mary leaned in and kissed her firmly on the lips, swallowed the wild moan that bubbled from her throat. "Tell me," she murmured, while Gertrude panted against her mouth, "because I want to hear them, not because I think it will help." Gertrude shook against Mary, sudden and violent, her breath catching and her hands tightening at Mary's hips. Mary arched an eyebrow. "Did you just--"

  
"Yes," Gertrude said. "That...that doesn't help, either."

  
Mary blinked. She considered Gertrude, alone in her office, grinding against her chair to make herself come while she wrote violent, supernatural smut on any available surface. She let out a breath of her own and smiled, slow and creeping. "How many times?" she asked, dipping her head to speak low into Gertrude's ear.

  
"I thought you wanted to know about the pictures," Gertrude said through clenched teeth.

  
Mary ignored her and plucked open the buttons of her blouse. "Were you thinking of me?" she asked, running a fingertip along the sensible cotton cups of Gertrude's bra.

  
"It was _your_ book that did this to me," Gertrude snapped, then hissed when Mary pressed a knee between her thighs. "Yes," she said; Mary didn't know and didn't particularly care if she were answering her question or encouraging her. She let her grind against her leg as she stripped her, pausing only to watch when Gertrude gasped and shivered her way through another orgasm. Mary slipped a hand beneath Gertrude's skirt, pressed two fingers to her cunt and found her soft and slick and hot. Gertrude let her head fall forward to rest on Mary's shoulder.

  
"How many times, did you say?" Mary asked. "Not counting the two just now." She moved her fingers in a lazy circle around Gertrude's clit, let them dip shallowly inside her.

  
"F-four." Gertrude pulled back, blinked a few times as if coming to her senses. "This isn't _helping--"_

  
Mary thrust her fingers forward smoothly, meeting no resistance as she sank into Gertrude's cunt. "Why don't you tell me what will, dear?" Mary asked. She twisted her fingers; Gertrude clung to her tight enough that Mary was sure she would have bruises later. She let her mind wander, briefly, thought of slotting her own hands against her hips and testing the tenderness the Archivist had left there. Then Gertrude sank her teeth into Mary's shoulder and yanked her back into the present.

  
"I think," Gertrude started. She paused, wet her lips. Her eyes, when they met Mary's, were still wild, still driven mad with want, but there was the familiar glint of iron determination there, too. "I think I need to _watch,"_ she whispered. Her lips twitched in a smile, and Mary was half a second too slow in jolting out of her arms.

  
Mary found herself bent over Gertrude's desk, one arm twisted up behind her back, cursing and spitting like an angry cat. She glared at Gertrude out of the corner of her eye, irritated. They dealt in deception, the both of them, in the illusion of helplessness and frailty; Mary was only irked to find herself on the receiving end of it. She didn't exactly relish being the deceived over the deceiver. Gertrude pinched her cheek, smug even as she ground her hips against Mary's.

  
"Very clever," Mary snapped, squirming. Gertrude chuckled to herself, pulling away just long enough to inch Mary's slacks down her thighs. "You could have just asked, you know," she added. She didn't let herself flinch when Gertrude tapped at her clit.

  
"Mm, I'm sure," Gertrude said absently. She rummaged through her desk, muttering to herself, then made a wordless noise of satisfaction when she produced a pair of handcuffs from the top drawer. "I borrowed these the last time the police came to visit," she explained as she carefully locked the cuffs around Mary's wrists. "The officer was a lovely young woman, very concerned about poor old me working down here alone. Asked if I thought it was 'creepy.' Those aren't too tight, are they, dear?"

  
Mary huffed out a breath. "No, Gertrude, but I hardly think they're necessary--" Gertude slapped her, high on the thigh, and Mary stopped talking with a strangled noise. "What are you planning, exactly?" she asked through gritted teeth.

  
Gertrude stroked one fingertip down her spine. "We need to add a page to your book," she said. She dragged her knuckles over Mary's cunt, letting out a pleased hum when she found her wet. "It's _hungry,_ you see."

  
"Is it, now." Mary craned her neck to look over her shoulder. Gertrude was staring at her with lust-dark eyes--physical lust, yes, but her patron was there, and it was hungry, too. A lesser woman might have quailed; Mary refused to. "Well, we'll have to give it something good, then, won't we?" She arched up into Gertrude's palm. "What did the other pages have?"

  
"Fantasies," Gertrude replied. She rubbed at Mary's clit with two fingers. "Tentacles. Men bent into unnatural shapes. Slavering beasts in the woods. All the...usual fare."

  
"Anything that caught your eye?" (Gertrude pulled a face at the pun. Mary allowed herself a moment to preen.)

  
"Oh, most of it," she said, distractedly. She had begun rocking her hips against Mary's ass again; Mary wasn't sure she realized it. "Who hasn't thought of things like that, knowing what we know?"

  
"Full of surprises, you are," Mary said. She bowed her head, thrust back against Gertrude's teasing fingers. "Did you have a favorite?"

  
Gertrude's hand paused. "Do _you?"_ she asked, sudden and forceful, and Mary let out a breath as if she'd been hit.

  
"Oh," she said. "Oh, it's all blood and violence, Gertrude dear, haven't you guessed?" She met Gertrude's gaze over her shoulder, grinned cruelly at her. "And your clever mouth, I suppose," she added. "Pulling out secrets like teeth." Gertrude twisted her fingers into Mary, rougher than Mary had been expecting, and she hissed. "Not that I'd mind _gagging_ that mouth," Mary added; Gertrude pressed deeper, brutal in her meticulousness, testing Mary's reactions until she was writhing and snarling on the desk.

  
Gertrude was unnervingly still and silent as she made Mary come, watching without reacting as Mary bucked against her hand. When she eased her fingers out, she held Mary open for long seconds, watching her twitch and rubbing along her lips in torturous, gentle strokes. "Are you enjoying the view?" Mary asked, when she had her voice back.

  
"Hmm." Gertrude pulled away, rummaged through her desk again; Mary hoped, absently vindictive, that they'd ruined all her files. Let the Eye feast on _that._ It took her a moment to realize that Gertrude was showing her something.

  
A letter opener, in fact. As sensible as its owner, entirely without ornamentation, and sharpened to a glowing edge. Mary licked her lips, staring at it. Heat gathered somewhere low in her belly. She let out a soft groan when Gertrude carefully cut her face with it, a tiny, shallow nick under her eye that bled more than it hurt. "You--" Her voice caught; Gertrude left a series of superficial cuts down her back, between her shoulders, along her hips. Mary tried to press discreetly against the desk's edge. "You spoil me," she managed, strangled, as Gertrude sliced dizzyingly high up the inside of her thigh.

  
"You were spoiled long before you met me," Gertrude said, and placed the flat of the blade against Mary's clit.

  
Any other woman might have gone still. Mary rolled her hips as if she were rutting against Gertrude's fingers again, and Gertrude held the letter opener still to let her, her eyes fixed on the blade as it became hot and slick. "I should have told you to bring your straight razor," Gertrude said thoughtfully, and Mary cried out as she came, hips snapping wildly. It was really a wonder Gertrude managed to stop her from slicing herself open--the thought only made it better, aftershocks shuddering along her spine.

  
She wasn't surprised to feel Gertrude slide the handle of the letter opener into her, or to be flipped onto her back; she strained upwards to lick at Gertrude's cunt before the Archivist had fully settled on top of her, eager and vicious. Gertrude came almost immediately, one hand digging gouges into the wood of her desk. She remained seated on Mary's face, panting; Mary licked at her lazily for a moment, then nipped sharply at her thigh to make her get up. "The handcuffs, Gertrude, dear," she said, once Gertrude had settled back in her chair, pleasantly disheveled.

  
Gertrude set her free and pulled the letter opener from her (which she regarded with some distaste before wrapping it in a handkerchief to be dealt with later). Mary stretched luxuriously, rolling out her neck, and reached over to flip to the last page of her book, keeping her eyes carefully unfocused as she did so. "Hm," she said, tilting her head. She turned the book around to show Gertrude. "Hardly flattering," she said.

  
Gertrude shut the book without looking. "Do you intend to keep it?" she asked, mouth curling once again in distaste.

  
"Do you intend to stop me?" Mary replied.

  
There was a brief silence; they regarded each other--stony, curious, amused. "No," Gertrude said, finally. "Do try not to add any more pages, if you can avoid it."

  
Mary smiled. "Of course, dear," she said. "Not without you."


End file.
